Modern letters. Our modern letters, very different from those of which we have just spoken, can be praised for their simple, free, familiar, lively, and natural style; but they only discuss minor matters, gossip, and only paint the jargon of the day and of a century when false politeness has saturated everything with lies: they are nothing but the frivolous compliments of people who wish to fool themselves and are not fooled at all: they are just the filler of the futile ideas of society, what we call duties. Our letters rarely take up great interests, true feelings, effusions of confidence between friends who disguise nothing and who yearn to say everything; in the end, almost all of them have a kind of monotony, which begin and end the same way.

It is not among us that Plutarch’s question of whether reading a letter can be put off needs be discussed; this delay was fatal to Caesar and to Archias, the tyrant of Thebes; but we don’t manage affairs of such great importance that we could not defer without peril the opening of our packets until the next day.

As to our correspondences with foreign countries, they almost always have to do with Business affairs; however, in times of war, the ministers who are in charge of the post office take care to unseal and read them before we do. The Athenians, in a similar situation, respected the letters that Philip wrote to Olympias; but our politics are not so delicate: states, it is said, following the Duke of Alba, are not governed by scruples.

In addition, one can find at the word Epistolary a review of some collections of letters of our famous writers; I would add only that those which have been published under the names of Abelard and Heloise, and under that of a Portuguese nun, are vivid portraits of love. We have also succeeded fairly well in a new genre of lettres , half verse, half prose: such is the letter in which Chapelle [1] gives an account of his trip to Montpellier, and that of the Count of Pléneuf of his to Denmark; such are some letters of Hamilton, [2] Pavillon, [3] la Fare, [4] Chaulieu, [5] and above all those from M. de Voltaire to the king of Prussia.

Notes:

1. Claude Emmanuel Lhuillier Chapelle (1626-1686). A nineteenth-century edition of his Voyage , based on that of 1732, is available at Voyage de Chapelle et de Bachaumont.

2. Antoine (Anthony) Hamilton (1646-1720) was a Scottish author who wrote in French and became known for his classical style. A nineteenth-century edition of his works, including some of his letters, is available at Oeuvres du comte Hamilton. For biographical information see Antoine Hamilton.

3. Poet Etienne Pavillon (1632-1705) was elected to the French Academy in 1691. His letters can be found in Oeuvres (Amsterdam, 1751). For biographical information see Etienne Pavillon.

4. Charles-Auguste, marquis de La Fare (1644-1712) was a libertine poet. Some of his letters are included in PoeÏsies de Monsieur le marquis de la Farre, published in 1711.

5. Guillaume Amfrye de Chaulieu (1639 – 1720), was a poet and a close friend of the marquis de La Fare. Their friendship was significant enough to their literary reputations that a deluxe edition of Chaulieu’s poetry published in 1803 includes La Fare’s poetry as well. Available at Poésies de Chaulieu et du marquis de La Fare.